Corporate travel post pandemic has been changed forever. According to a recent Bloomberg survey of several large companies, at least 84% are looking to change their business travel plans and cut those travel expenses.

Hundreds of millions of travelers are going on business trips each year prior to the pandemic and it was estimated that business travelers might make up at least 12% of the market or more.

When the pandemic became widely reported on we started to see travel trends change almost overnight. International travel plummeted and borders closed around the world. Still there are a number of restrictions in place for travel and border closures for some non-essential trips in some regions. There is also the growing prevalence of vaccination passports being proposed as well and the uncertainty of what that might mean for the future of travel, especially for unvaccinated travelers who haven't been vaccinated for multiple reasons.

Along with the change in business communication to virtual habits in 2020 we also saw some start to question if business travel should ever resume to the way it was beforehand. There are multiple benefits to finding more efficient methods than old ways of business travel thanks to technology and the different platforms that enable people to communicate around the world today like Zoom and others.

The pandemic forced companies around the world to get used to communicating this way and finding alternatives when they couldn't engage in business travel as usual. Those experiences that those companies have had with seeking alternatives to traditional business travel arrangements have helped a new trend to emerge.

This means that a large portion of companies might be looking to slash those costs for good and embrace something different so that they don't have to engage in business travel like they used to.

Planning trips for business that are looking to try and increase sales could drop by as much as a third, and internal meetings more than that. And driving down costs won't be the only benefit either.

No Rush To Get Back to Corporate Travel Trips

Millions around the world now have become comfortable with the video conferencing tools that are available and we might expect to see more of this retained in the market after the pandemic. The last year gave the adoption of those technologies a significant boost and could have changed business travel for good now as a result.